Rite in the Rain's Waterproof Paper and Tough Mechanical Pencil

It rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest, which sucks if you're outside and are trying to write something on paper, as loggers once needed to. So in the 1920s, well before ruggedized tablets were invented, a guy named Jerry Darling created waterproof paper and sold it in notebook form to the logging industry.

Today the company Darling started has evolved into Rite in the Rain, which manufactures all-weather writing paper. Here's how it stacks up versus regular paper:

The company sells it in pads, forms, notebooks, looseleaf, copier/laser printer sheets, index cards, field planners, you name it. And all of their paper has very green credentials:

In spite of Rite in the Rain's durability, it is totally recyclable as standard paper, which is untrue of synthetic, or poly coated papers. Simply recycle Rite in the Rain as you do other white or printed papers.

The process involved in the manufacture of Rite in the Rain paper was designed to have ultra-low impact on the environment. The water based coating process emits only steam and all mill off-cuts are recycled back into the paper-manufacturing stream. All printing plates and processing liquids are recycled. 100% of printing inks are soy-based.

...The wood fibers we utilize for Rite in the Rain are purchased from FSC Certified sources. By doing this it insures our product is manufactured with high environmental and social standards and practices.

1 Comment

Note that Rite in the Rain recommends Fisher Space pens for use on their notebooks - or pencil. I own such a notebook and drew a rather elaborate layout for a project using a pilot G-05 gel ink pen, the space pen, and a pencil (to get three different colors and that's what I had with me). I was showing my notebook off to a friend and ran it under the kitchen faucet and all the Pilot ink washed off with zero residue! Everything else was intact.
However this stuff works, it relies on a compatible ink formulation. I do think the pencil idea is neat though.

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